Thornback Tyrant

“A hulking, horned brute whose hide turns ordinary blades. Bring a Leafbite Blade, broadhead arrows, or the Magic Dart.”

Fighting it

• It swings back once every 3 of your combat inputs, whether your attack hit or not.
• A kill is worth about 79,120 Melee or Ranged XP, or 108,790 Magic XP, plus about 26,406 Hitpoints XP. XP is paid per point of damage and shared out by your stance (a stance that sends half to Defence pays it at Defence's rate of 8). A finishing blow that overshoots adds a little more; poison and Vengeance damage pay nothing; XP bonuses from gear and food add on top.
• Its hits roll from 0 to 42 (half its Strength, plus one). The prayer Bladeguard blocks them completely.
• Thick hide: shrugs off Magic; Melee and Ranged hit normally.
• With the Mounted Brute Head built in your Holding it hits you 10% softer.

Slayer

• You need Slayer level 70 to attack it at all.
• Each kill gives 395,600 Slayer XP, whether or not you are still on task.

What you need

• With Magic, only the right spell harms it: Magic Dart. Against it, that spell hits as hard as the strongest spell your Magic level can cast, when that is more than its own max hit.
• The right weapon for your style, or you deal no damage: Melee: Leafbite Blade, Ranged: Broadhead Arrow (Ranged checks your arrows).

A superior

The superior form of the Thornback Brute. With the Slayer unlock Bigger and Badder, every on-task kill of one has a 1/200 chance that the next to appear is this instead. It fights the same way, a good deal tougher. A kill counts once toward your task and gives 395,600 Slayer XP. It rolls its normal drops 3 times, plus a 1.33% chance at one of these:

• Imbued Heart (12.5% of those)
• Dust Battlestaff (43.8% of those)
• Mist Battlestaff (43.8% of those)

It vanishes if you change target, die or log out before it appears. Its kills are counted separately from the Thornback Brute's.

Drops

Every row rolls on its own, so one kill can drop several things. Drops go straight to your bank (a pet goes straight onto you). Gear and potions that raise your rare find chance don't change these odds.

Item	Amount	Chance per roll (3 rolls a kill)
Gold	800–1,800	Always
Big Bones	1–2	Always
Unidentified Herb	1–2	45%
Nature Rune	10–25	25%
White Berries	1–2	15%
Seed Pack	1	6%
Rune Sword	1	2%
Adamant Chestplate	1	2%
Uncut Gem	1	2%
Rare drop table	1 roll	1/128
Leafbite Blade	1	1/384
Thornback Brute Head	1	1/4,200

1/128 of kills also reach into the rare drop table.

After a kill the next one appears 2.5 seconds later. Dying costs nothing but time: a 15-second wait before you can fight again. The Agility perks Hot Pursuit and Second Wind shorten both (see Combat).